Red Gotham
by salomon12
Summary: Gotham is under a new political regimen, 10 years after the joker's death. People thought the city would be a better and more prosperous place when the prince clown finally died but they were wrong. History had showed us that nothing in Gotham could be predicted not even the weather. Batman is just a legend now, there are no heroes in Gotham. Just a simple rule: Survive somehow.


**Hey guys!**

 **This is my first batman fanfic so i hope you like it. Please positive feedback and critics. I hope you like it!**

 **Batman and all its characters are not mine and they will never be.**

 **Enjoy it!**

Chapter One

If they catch you, you're dead

It was a beautiful dusk in Gotham when It all started...10 years after the joker's death. People thought the city would be a better and more prosperous place when the infame clown finally died...but they were wrong. History had showed us that nothing in Gotham could be predicted...not even the weather.

My friend Meredith and I were waiting for the armed "officials" to leave the supply building, before the sun went out. We haven't eaten in days and our food rations were taken away from us thanks to some despicable rat boys. We were desperate...and girls gotta eat.

"They are not leaving" Mer whispered. I looked at their positions. Straight back, alerted position and prepared guns. They didn't seem tired, which meant they would probably hold up a little bit longer. But the orange sky telled us we wouldn't.

"Well", I whispered back. "Looks like we have to make them get away from that door"

We shared a knowing look, Meredith nodded and went up the street. I was focused on our targets when my friend ran by me and stopped breathless in front of them.

"Get away from this place, kid" the guard said in a monotone voice.

Meredith was supporting herself on her knees, when she managed to say:

"Rebels…"

This managed to cause a reaction on the four men surrounding the door. They grab their guns firmly and positioned themselves for battle.

"Where?"

"The sewers. Fifth street, pass crime alley"

The guards started running toward the given direction. They couldn't waste the opportunity of catching insurgents. That would get them promoted. I watched them ran away before meeting with Mer at the gigantic glass-built doors.

"Ready?" she asked, adjusting her backpack on her shoulders.

I looked up and admired what once used to be Gotham's most beautiful building… Gotham's future. Or that's what my mom told me once. It was the center of technology and progress in the city and its owner used to be one of the richest men on earth. Now all of its windows were broken, the empty spaces now covered in white mantels. It looked old and devastated with some walls torn apart. At the top, the expansive remainings of a big and luminous sign. It was unreadable but I knew perfectly well what it once said : Wayne enterprises.

"Yep" I said, readjusting my own bag. "All set"

We opened the big doors and entered the huge facility, looking for food.

"This place is a mess"

We went through the first floor our flashlights, looking for vital things we might had needed for surviving. The place was filled with boxes and containers, which were impossible to open. So we decided to keep looking for loose things on the ground.

"Agree" I said, viewing a creepy doll with a burn face.

After minutes of looking we decided there was nothing useful for us on the first floor.

I sighed.

"We'll have to look at the other floors"

"What?" Meredith looked at me, stupefact. "Do you have any idea how many floors does this freaking building have?"

I shrugged. "A lot?"

She rolled her eyes.

"You are crazy, Nix. Seriously"

Her piercing blue eyes were looking at me, stunning as always. I'd always envied her. She was ten times prettier than I was, ten times smarter and tem time luckier. I was jealous of her wavy thick black hair and her strong features. Besides, she was 10 cm taller...no, I'm not kidding.

She's always a ten.

"Well…". For once, I tried to think in a solution. "A rich guy used to run this company, right?"

"Yes…"

"Maybe we can find something on his office. Something valuable we can use to trade with the Red agents for food"

Meredith thought about it for a moment before smiling.

"I like that idea" She walked past me and stopped right at the front of two metallic doors. "Luckily for us, the elevator is still working"

We arrived at the last floor after seven minutes on the elevator.

"How did you know his office was at the last floor?" I asked once the doors opened.

"I did my homework before coming here" she said, and I felt strangely bad about it.

The reception room was destroyed and the desk was filled with little holes as if someone had fired against it multiple times.

The CEO's office wasn't better. It was filled with papers and files spread across the floor, dark spots (That resemble very much to dried blood) covered its furniture and some parts of the walls. The desk and the computer were the only things standing. Book shelves covered the back wall, some of them looked burned.

"Search for something useful" Meredith said, while she started looking around the room.

I obeyed her, but something else caught my attention when I was walking to the book shelves. It was a burned picture with a broken gold frame. Two parents and a child smiling for the camera. They were dressed up for the moment and they looked happy in it.

"That's the Wayne family"

I turned my head to look at my friend, who was searching through the desk's drawers.

"What happened to them?" I asked.

"My dad told me the parents were killed when the boy was younger...And the boy, Bruce Wayne, he died, as a man, before the Red Nation started...Now start looking for treasures he might left behind"

I took a glance at the picture one last time, before returning my way to the book shelves. I started looking through the books looking for money hidden between their pages. Minutes passed and the sun hid, leaving space for a cold and dark night.

I was about to give up, when a title on a blue covered book caught my attention. I took it and read its cover.

"The court of owls"

Something inside the book was keeping it from closing completely. I opened and my eyes almost popped out of my head when I discovered what was inside.

A sharped black metal instrument was hidden in its pages. It looked graceful and powerful, but I was focused in only one thing. Its bat-shaped figure. My mom used to tell me stories about a man dressed like a bat who, ironically, was the guardian angel of the White Gotham. A man called Batman, Gotham's hero.

"Hey"

Meredith voice took me out of the trance and I looked at her.

She was smiling and holding something in her hands.

"I found something that might be worth it"

She showed me the object and I gasped when a pearl necklace shined from her hands.

"It's beautiful" I said in awe, forgetting about The batman for a moment.

Unfortunately, our luck didn't last long,

An alarm went off and all the lights of the building turned on. We heard gunshots somewhere around the building and we knew we had to move. We sprinted toward the elevator, Meredith with the necklace and the bat-thing on my left pocket. But It was too late, someone was already going up on the elevator, so we decided to descend through the stairs.

We were eight floors below the top, when we heard voices below us

. We entered the next floor and Meredith said:

"We have to split up, that way we can hide easier"

I shook my head. "I'm...not...leaving...you" I said between breaths.

"You have to" She said before running away from me, disappearing around the corner.

My heart was asking me for a break, but the voices were getting closer and I needed to move fast. I managed to hid between a big container and a broken window when the door bursted open and a five flashlight illuminated the room, making my heart beat faster.

"Search the entire floor! The Red King wants no survivors in the building"

Steps were heard all around the floor, I tried my best to hid my breathing and pray for Meredith.

And of course...my luck was ten times worse. Seconds later, I caught a flash nearing my positions. He was looking behind the containers, so I knew it was a matter of time before he find me.

My body reacted faster than I could process. In a matter of seconds, I passed the white mantel covering the window and found myself hanging from the beam and praying for the stupidity of the man, that he wouldn't dare to look behind the white sheets.

It was only a matter of seconds when I heard the Red guard near me screaming "Clear!" But for me was an eternity. Despite my arms burning and my muscles screaming at me to let go, I stayed there for a few minutes more before climbing up again. I thanked the universe a hundred times before arranging my backpack and hid behind the container again. I breathed deeply and decided to go looking for Meredith, but that's when all hell broke loose.

A screaming, then several gunshots, then more people coming through, more gunshots and then silence, before someone screamed "Death to the Red King" And the floor went quiet again, only the sound of gunshots on other floors.

My world stopped and my body freezed for a few seconds before sprinting away from my hiding spot and running to the source of the sound.

In that moment my life changed forever.

In one of the hallways i found one pair of cold and unfocused eyes looking at me, blue eyes that were once full of bright and hair I was always jealous of. Perfect features were now covered in blood and I suddenly realized the universe had changed fates.

I was looking at my friend's lifeless body.

I was in shock, so i don't remember well how i did what I did later.

I recalled someone yelling at me, I turned and saw a gun pointed directly at me, my hand involuntarily went to left pocket and I took out the weapon with a bat shape. Before he could fire his gun i threw the weapon and hit him right in the eye. The man fell and, without thinking, i retrieved the thing from his eye and run. I didn't look back at the man yelling in pain, not even at my friend's corpse. I just ran. And, somehow, I went out of Lucifer's home right back into hell.


End file.
